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= = Popular culture = = |
The Queen 's Gate Tunnel was featured in the first ever episode of Torchwood , called " Everything Changes " and was first broadcast by BBC Three on 22 October 2006 . The Grangetown Link was featured in the 2006 Christmas episode of Doctor Who called " The Runaway Bride " . It was first broadcast by BBC One on 25 Dece... |
= Development of Fez = |
The high @-@ profile and protracted five @-@ year development of Fez led to its status as an " underdog darling of the indie game scene " . The 2012 puzzle platform game built around rotating between four 2D views of a 3D space was developed by indie developer Polytron Corporation and published by Polytron , Trapdoor ... |
Fish and Shawn McGrath collaborated on a puzzle game that became Fez . When McGrath left the project due to creative differences , Fish , the game 's artist , pursued a platform game direction with Renaud Bédard , the game 's programmer , who wrote the game 's level editor and game engine from scratch . Levels were bu... |
= = History = = |
Fez 's development cycle developed a reputation for its protracted five @-@ year length and public exposure . Nathan Grayson of VG247 likened the game 's rocky development process to " an indie Duke Nukem Forever " . Polygon reviewer Arthur Gies wrote that the game was an " underdog darling of the indie game scene " f... |
The game that became Fez began in a collaboration between Montreal @-@ based Phil Fish and Toronto @-@ based Shawn McGrath on McGrath 's idea for a puzzle game : a four @-@ sided 3D space with each side in 2D , similar to Fish 's 3D pixels ( voxels ) as incorporated into Fez . The entirety of Fez 's design , lore , an... |
Fez was first announced in July 2007 on The Independent Gaming Source . A trailer released in October 2007 convinced Jason DeGroot to join the development team as a producer . DeGroot , also known as " 6955 " , first met Fish at a 2006 E3 party , and started work on the game 's soundtrack and sound effects . The sound... |
Development continued with a more experimental ethos until the company began to run out of capital . The Canadian government loan that had funded Polytron 's prototyping phase was not renewed for their production phase . They also lost funding from the organization that preceded the Indie Fund as Polytron 's producer ... |
Fish is shown preparing for Fez 's March 2011 PAX East booth in the 2012 documentary film Indie Game : The Movie , which chronicles the stories of several indie developers at various stages of their games ' development cycles . As a subplot , the film presents Fish amidst a legal dispute with a former business partner... |
Fez won the Audience Choice Award at the September 2011 Fantastic Arcade , Best in Show and Best Story / World Design at the October 2011 Indiecade , and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2012 GDC Independent Games Festival . It was also a 2011 Penny Arcade Expo " PAX 10 " selection . Fez was displayed in its enti... |
= = = Release = = = |
Fez was released on April 13 , 2012 and sold 200 @,@ 000 copies in its yearlong exclusivity to the Xbox Live Arcade platform . Several months later , Polytron became embroiled in a high @-@ profile dispute with Microsoft over the cost of patching the game . Polytron had released a fix that resolved many of the game 's... |
In March 2013 , Fish announced a May 1 , 2013 release for the game 's PC port , and opened preorders on GOG.com and Steam . The game 's OS X and Linux ports debuted in the pay @-@ what @-@ you @-@ want Humble Indie Bundle 9 on September 11 , 2013 . Polytron announced ports for PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 3 , and PlayS... |
Bédard planned to leave Polytron after finishing Fez to experience work with a full development team , but stayed to port the Windows release before joining Toronto 's Capybara Games . He credited the game 's long development cycle to his own inexperience in game development ( compounded by the team 's small size and ... |
More than three years after its digital launch , Fez received a physical release designed by Fish and limited to a signed edition of 500 in December 2015 . The deluxe package included the soundtrack and a stylized red notebook with gold foil inlay . |
= = Design = = |
When Bédard joined the project , the game focused on the 2D – 3D mechanic and did not yet have open world ambitions . He coded the game in Microsoft Visual C # Express and XNA Game Studio Express . His first task , the level editor Fezzer , was coded from scratch in XNA and inspired by SketchUp . Bédard also wrote the... |
Fish created pixel art in Photoshop for each tiled side ( " trile " ) of the 3D trixel that Bédard 's custom software compiled into 3D game assets , which Fish would extrude as surfaces in Fezzer to build levels . Fish found the level design process " overwhelming " , and Bédard has said he was relieved that it was no... |
Fish describes the game 's changes during development as " organic " — they tested different kinds of levels and replicated the types of in @-@ game exploration that the team appreciated most . It came to adopt Metroidvania mechanics , with " secret passages , warp gates , and cheat codes " . Fish cited Myst as anothe... |
The game 's mechanics were inspired by the Nintendo Entertainment System games Fish played in his youth , particularly Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda . Fish cited Fumito Ueda 's Ico as the game 's third inspiration , and he sought to emulate its feeling of nostalgic and isolated loneliness . Fish also sought to e... |
= Hugh Walpole = |
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole , CBE ( 13 March 1884 – 1 June 1941 ) was an English novelist . He was the son of an Anglican clergyman , intended for a career in the church but drawn instead to writing . Among those who encouraged him were the authors Henry James and Arnold Bennett . His skill at scene @-@ setting and vivid... |
After his first novel , The Wooden Horse , in 1909 , Walpole wrote prolifically , producing at least one book every year . He was a spontaneous story @-@ teller , writing quickly to get all his ideas on paper , seldom revising . His first novel to achieve major success was his third , Mr Perrin and Mr Traill , a tragi... |
As a gay man at a time when homosexual practices were illegal in Britain , Walpole conducted a succession of intense but discreet relationships with other men , and was for much of his life in search of what he saw as " the perfect friend " . He eventually found one , a married policeman , with whom he settled in the ... |
Walpole 's output was large and varied . Between 1909 and 1941 he wrote thirty @-@ six novels , five volumes of short stories , two original plays and three volumes of memoirs . His range included disturbing studies of the macabre , children 's stories and historical fiction , most notably his Herries Chronicle series... |
= = Biography = = |
= = = Early years = = = |
Walpole was born in Auckland , New Zealand , the eldest of three children of the Rev Somerset Walpole and his wife , Mildred Helen , née Barham ( 1854 – 1925 ) . Somerset Walpole had been an assistant to the Bishop of Truro , Edward Benson , from 1877 until 1882 , when he was offered the incumbency of St Mary 's Pro @... |
Mildred Walpole found it hard to settle in New Zealand , and something of her restlessness and insecurity affected the character of her eldest child . In 1889 , two years after the birth of the couple 's daughter , Dorothea ( " Dorothy " ) , Somerset Walpole accepted a prominent and well @-@ paid academic post at the ... |
Walpole was sent to England , where according to his biographer Rupert Hart @-@ Davis the next ten years were the unhappiest time of Walpole 's life . He first attended a preparatory school in Truro . Though he missed his family and felt lonely he was reasonably happy , but he moved to Sir William Borlase 's Grammar S... |
In 1896 Somerset Walpole discovered his son 's horror of the Marlow school and he moved him to the King 's School , Canterbury . For two years he was a fairly content , though undistinguished , pupil there . In 1897 Walpole senior was appointed principal of Bede College , Durham , and Hugh was moved again , to be a da... |
I grew up ... discontented , ugly , abnormally sensitive , and excessively conceited . No one liked me – not masters , boys , friends of the family , nor relations who came to stay ; and I do not in the least wonder at it . I was untidy , uncleanly , excessively gauche . I believed that I was profoundly misunderstood ... |
Though Walpole was no admirer of the schools he had attended there , the cathedral cities of Truro , Canterbury and Durham made a strong impression on him . He drew on aspects of them for his fictional cathedral city of Polchester in Glebeshire , the setting of many of his later books . Walpole 's memories of his time... |
= = = Cambridge , Liverpool and teaching = = = |
From 1903 to 1906 Walpole studied history at Emmanuel College , Cambridge . While there he had his first work published , the critical essay " Two Meredithian Heroes " , which was printed in the college magazine in autumn 1905 . As an undergraduate he met and fell under the spell of A C Benson , formerly a greatly lov... |
Benson gently declined Walpole 's advances . They remained friends , but Walpole , rebuffed in his " excessive desire to be loved " , turned the full force of his enthusiasms elsewhere , and the relationship with Benson became less important to him . Less than two years later Benson 's diary entry on Walpole 's subseq... |
He seems to have conquered Gosse completely . He spends his Sundays in long walks with H G Wells . He dines every week with Max Beerbohm and R Ross ... and this has befallen a not very clever young man of 23 . Am I a little jealous ? – no , I don 't think so . But I am a little bewildered ... I do not see any sign of ... |
With Benson 's help , Walpole had come to terms with the loss of his faith . Somerset Walpole , himself the son of an Anglican priest , hoped that his eldest son would follow him into the ministry . Walpole was too concerned for his father 's feelings to tell him he was no longer a believer , and on graduation from Ca... |
From April to July 1907 Walpole was in Germany , tutoring the children of the popular author Elizabeth von Arnim . In 1908 he taught French at Epsom College . His brief experience of teaching is reflected in his third novel , Mr Perrin and Mr Traill . As well as the clerical forebears , Walpole had notable authors in ... |
= = = Early literary career = = = |
A C Benson was a friend of Henry James , to whom Walpole wrote a fan letter late in 1908 , with Benson 's encouragement . A correspondence ensued and in February 1909 James invited Walpole to lunch at the Reform Club in London . They developed a close friendship , described by James 's biographer Leon Edel as resembli... |
Walpole published his first novel , The Wooden Horse , in 1909 . It told of a staid and snobbish English family shaken up by the return of one of its members from a less hidebound life in New Zealand . The book received good reviews but barely repaid the cost of having it typed . His first commercial success was Mr Pe... |
The Guardian reviewer observed that the setting of Mr Perrin and Mr Traill – a second @-@ rate public school – was clearly drawn from life , as indeed it was . The boys of Epsom College were delighted with the thinly disguised version of their school , but the college authorities were not , and Walpole was persona non... |
In early 1914 James wrote an article for The Times Literary Supplement surveying the younger generation of British novelists and comparing them with their eminent elder contemporaries . In the latter category James put Bennett , Joseph Conrad , John Galsworthy , Maurice Hewlett and H G Wells . The four new authors on ... |
= = = First World War = = = |
As war approached , Walpole realised that his poor eyesight would disqualify him from serving in the armed forces . He volunteered to join the police , but was turned down ; he then accepted a journalistic appointment based in Moscow , reporting for The Saturday Review and The Daily Mail . He was allowed to visit the ... |
The " Sanitar " is the part of the Red Cross that does the rough work at the front , carrying men out of the trenches , helping at the base hospitals in every sort of way , doing every kind of rough job . They are an absolutely official body and I shall be one of the few ( half @-@ dozen ) Englishmen in the world wear... |
While in training for the Sanitar , Walpole devoted his leisure hours to gaining a reasonable fluency in the Russian language , and to his first full @-@ length work of non @-@ fiction , a literary biography of Joseph Conrad . In the summer of 1915 he worked on the Austrian @-@ Russian front , assisting at operations ... |
During an engagement early in June 1915 Walpole single @-@ handedly rescued a wounded soldier ; his Russian comrades refused to help and Walpole carried one end of a stretcher and dragged the man to safety . For this he was awarded the Cross of Saint George ; General Lechitsky presented him with the medal in August . ... |
Before he left for Petrograd , Walpole 's novel The Dark Forest was published . It drew on his experiences in Russia , and was more sombre than much of his earlier fiction . Reviews were highly favourable ; The Daily Telegraph commented on " a high level of imaginative vision ... reveals capacity and powers in the aut... |
Walpole returned to Petrograd in February 1916 . He moved into Somov 's flat , and his Anglo @-@ Russian Propaganda Bureau began work . The following month he suffered a personal blow : he recorded in his diary for 13 March 1916 , " Thirty two to @-@ day ! Should have been a happy day but was completely clouded for me... |
By late 1917 it was clear to Walpole and to the British authorities that there was little advantage in keeping him in Russia . On 7 November he left , missing the Bolshevik Revolution , which began on that day . He was appointed to a post at the Foreign Office in its Department of Information , headed by John Buchan .... |
= = = Post @-@ war and 1920s = = = |
Walpole remained prolific in the post @-@ war years , and began a parallel and highly remunerative career as a lecturer in literature . At the instigation of his American publisher , George Doran , he made his first lecture tour of the US in 1919 , receiving an enthusiastic welcome wherever he went . What Sadleir desc... |
One of Walpole 's major novels of the early post @-@ war period was The Cathedral , which unlike much of his fiction was not dashed off but worked on across four years , beginning in 1918 . The story of an arrogant 19th @-@ century archdeacon in conflict with other clergy and laity was certain to bring comparisons wit... |
Walpole was a keen music lover and when in 1920 he heard a new tenor at the Proms he was much impressed and sought him out . Lauritz Melchior became one of the most important friendships of his life , and Walpole did much to foster the singer 's budding career . Wagner 's son Siegfried engaged Melchior for the Bayreut... |
In 1924 Walpole moved into a house near Keswick in the Lake District . His large income enabled him to maintain his London flat in Piccadilly , but Brackenburn , on the slopes of Catbells overlooking Derwentwater , was his main home for the rest of his life . He was quickly made welcome by local residents , and the sc... |
During the mid @-@ twenties Walpole produced two of his best @-@ known novels in the macabre vein that he drew on from time to time , exploring the fascination of fear and cruelty . The Old Ladies ( 1924 ) is a study of a timid elderly spinster exploited and eventually frightened to death by a predatory widow . Portra... |
= = = 1930 – 41 = = = |
By the 1930s , though his public success remained considerable , many literary critics saw Walpole as outdated . His reputation in literary circles took a blow from a malicious caricature in Somerset Maugham 's 1930 novel Cakes and Ale : the character Alroy Kear , a superficial novelist of more pushy ambition than lit... |
In 1934 Walpole accepted an invitation from Metro @-@ Goldwyn @-@ Mayer studios to go to Hollywood to write the scenario for a film adaptation of David Copperfield . He enjoyed many aspects of life in Hollywood , but as one who rarely revised any of his own work he found it tedious to produce sixth and seventh drafts ... |
The critical and commercial success of the film of David Copperfield led to an invitation to return to Hollywood in 1936 . When he got there he found that the studio executives had no idea which films they wanted him to work on , and he had eight weeks of highly paid leisure , during which he wrote a short story and w... |
In 1937 Walpole was offered a knighthood . He accepted , though confiding to his diary that he could not think of a good novelist since Walter Scott who had done so . " Kipling , Hardy , Galsworthy all refused . But I 'm not of their class , and range with Doyle , Anthony Hope and such . ... Besides I shall like being... |
Walpole 's taste for adventure did not diminish in his last years . In 1939 he was commissioned to report for William Randolph Hearst 's newspapers on the funeral in Rome of Pope Pius XI , the conclave to elect his successor , and the subsequent coronation . A fellow correspondent was Tom Driberg , whose memoirs tell ... |
After the outbreak of the Second World War Walpole remained in England , dividing his time between London and Keswick , and continuing to write with his usual rapidity . He completed a fifth novel in the Herries series and began work on a sixth . His health was undermined by diabetes . He overexerted himself at the op... |
= = = Legacy = = = |
Walpole was a keen and discerning collector of art . Sir Kenneth Clark called him " one of the three or four real patrons of art in this country , and of that small body he was perhaps the most generous and the most discriminating . " He left fourteen works to the Tate Gallery and Fitzwilliam Museum , including painti... |
Other artists represented in Walpole 's collection were Epstein , Picasso , Gauguin , Sickert and Utrillo . After his death the finest works in his collection , other than those bequeathed , were exhibited in London during April and May 1945 ; the exhibition also included works by Constable , Turner and Rodin . |
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